The 7 things you should do to improve your B2B marketing - ranked in order of how quickly they can produce leads and return on investment

7 tips to boost your B2B sales

All business marketers strive to run as many profitable, efficient and effective B2B marketing strategies as they can.

Businesses, regardless of what they sell should not spend all marketing efforts and money on one or two marketing channels.

Neither should they focus on marketing only to the decision makers they already have on their B2B customer lists.

In order to reach existing and potential customers, you should use every B2B business marketing strategy available, and test and measure each marketing channel.

Once you do this, you’ll have multiple marketing streams delivering qualified leads to your business every week.

What is a B2B sales funnel?

All of the above takes time and effort.

You should think of your B2B marketing plan as casting out as many fishing lines as possible at once to bring in new prospects.

As quickly as possible, you need to move prospects through your sales funnel so your sales team can qualify them and close the deal.

More Than Words note – What makes a B2B buyer leave your sales funnel?
Most prospects leave funnels either because they buy from you, buy from your competitors, delay their decision, or simply lose interest.

An overview of the business to business lead generation sales funnel is presented below:

1. Awareness (top of the funnel): when the customer recognises that they have a problem they cannot fix or an opportunity they cannot take advantage of, and they search for a solution,
2. Qualification (middle of funnel): the buyer researches solutions and compares options, and
3. Decision and close (bottom of the funnel): when the buyer knows what they want and is comparing vendors and service providers.

In this article we’ll show you how to create sales funnel content which:

• brings B2B decision makers into your lead generation sales funnel at the awareness stage, and
• increases a potential customer’s interest, explains and displays the benefits of purchasing your products and services, and moves prospects faster through your sales funnel.

How does B2B direct marketing work?

Many of our clients view inbound and B2B content marketing strategies as passive.

When you use inbound marketing strategies, it might feel like you are giving your prospective clients a little too much control. And you’re right.

Direct marketing works.

Marketing by email, phone, and postal mail relies on first finding decision makers within relevant B2B markets.

When you target 100 potential B2B customers online, you know that only two to four will be interested in what you have to offer at any given time.

The best direct marketing campaigns not only find two to four ready-to-buy prospects, but can also move other companies from consideration to action.

This does depend on how well you execute the campaign – but with the right level of urgency is very effective.

Next, decide what content you need to create for B2B marketing

Direct B2B marketing content

Creating content for the later stages of the sales funnel will be vital to the success of a B2B direct marketing campaign.

This is because direct marketing approaches like email marketing, phone marketing, and postal marketing convince business to business buyers quickly.

It is a B2B marketer’s responsibility to get prospects to the point when they are ready to be passed over to your B2B sales team.

Direct business marketing campaigns require product or service descriptions, case studies, testimonials, white papers and other materials that:

• set you up as an experienced provider to your target audience, and
• prove the long-term efficacy and suitability of your product/service.

You will need compelling email copywriting, sales letters, and persuasive telesales scripting.

More Than Words note – Need to reach your target audience directly but lack the staff or infrastructure to do it yourself? Our in-house direct marketing teams carry out managed B2B email marketing campaigns and managed B2B telemarketing campaigns . Please ask us for more details when you get in touch.

The 7 fastest ways to grow your sales

Your time is valuable – and we understand that.

Here are 7 strategies you can use to increase sales faster – in other words, more visitors to your website and more qualified leads for your sales team to follow up on.

1. Pay-per-click advertising

You have two options for pay per click marketing:

• Google ad campaigns based on keywords, or
• audience-based advertising – deciding who sees your advert by their location, their job or company, and other factors.

If you are doing either type of marketing, set up a landing page for visitors to enter their details and/or offer them something free.

This could be a downloadable e-book, white paper, product description or discount voucher.

You can set up a pay-per-click campaign within minutes on all major search engines and social media platforms.

2. Sending B2B newsletters to clients and prospects

Newsletters sent to customers and prospects (customers who have contacted you but haven’t yet bought) serve two purposes:

• keeping your existing customers loyal with updates, incentives, and more, and
• keeping in touch with prospects who are nearing the point of purchase and who need more convincing about your business.

Did you know that finding new customers to buy from you costs five times as much as selling to existing customers?

You can create an email newsletter and send it to your customers within 24 hours.

3. B2B email marketing

Email marketing has been proven to generate high quality leads and sales.

But how can businesses find reliable contact details for businesses that match their chosen buyer persona?

One option is to buy a B2B email marketing database from a company like More Than Words Marketing.

We have thousands of email addresses for decision making contacts in businesses, education, and the public sector.

Let us know about your company and what you do, and we’ll provide you with the B2B marketing data you need.

You should always use the most accurate marketing data to target any B2B audience or buyer.

Everyone on your B2B email marketing list should have an identifiable need for whatever you’re sending.

More Than Words note – ask us about marketing automation from our email lists. We offer clients access to our B2B email database , our school email address list , and our database of public sector email addresses.

4. Telemarketing

B2B telemarketing allows your sales team to speak directly to the people you want to persuade to purchase your products and services.

An experienced telesales team, the right script, and a manager who motivates and trains front-line staff will quickly generate appointments or leads.

To populate your sales funnel, ask directors and owners of B2B firms you are targeting:

• who currently supplies them,
• when contracts end, and
• how much they are paying at the moment.

In addition to any B2B sale you make straight away, with a telemarketing database of just 1,000 or 2,000 contacts you can build a pipeline of expected revenue over the next 12 to 24 months.

More Than Words note – we maintain an extensive UK telemarketing database for B2B clients wishing to use telesales as one of their lead marketing efforts. Please ask us when you call about our B2B telemarketing data, our school calling list, and our public sector calling list.

5. Postal marketing

In many buyers’ minds, receiving tangible, attractive and persuasive sales letters from prospective suppliers offers added value and prestige.

In recent years, mail volumes have stabilised compared to previous decades.

When your mailing reaches a decision maker, there’s less competition for their attention.

A bespoke mailing list can be built for you to target specific audiences and B2B markets.

Your postal marketing campaign could kick off in as little as 2-3 weeks with the help of a mailing house, a printer, and a copywriter.

More Than Words note – we offer bespoke mailing lists to clients selling their products or services to other businesses. When you contact us, please ask us about our business to business mailing list , our school mailing list , and our public sector mailing list .

6. Advertise/appear on relevant websites

As individuals and professionals, there are websites we rely on more than others for information, quality, and accuracy.

Create content for your business on websites and platforms that cater to B2B markets.

Many of these websites will link to your site if you provide them with content (although most of them will not generate direct qualified leads for your business).

By linking your website to third-party sites, you can collect visitor contact details and generate leads.

7. Benefit-led product and service descriptions

Less than 3% of website visitors actually buy something when they’re on companies’ sites. When the information they need is a search away, consumers want more assurance.

Most B2B sales require interaction between your client and your sales team.

Ask yourself:

• how would you rate the current quality of your site’s information?
• would it persuade you to contact your business?
• is your website simply a list of technical features rather than a story about value and benefits?
• does it have the keywords and structure for it to be understood by Google and ranked highly?

There can be thousands of pounds worth of extra sales between a good and a bad product description.

During the process of redesigning and optimizing your website, be sure to ensure that your product descriptions are optimised for Google and that they truly sell your product or service

In order to reach existing and potential customers, you should use every B2B business marketing strategy available, and test and measure each marketing channel.

Once you do this, you’ll have multiple marketing streams delivering qualified leads to your business every week.

B2B Marketing FAQ and Jargon Buster

What does B2B mean in marketing?

B2B refers to business-to-business marketing.

A B2B marketing strategy involves using different marketing strategies and approaches to generate leads from other companies.

B2B marketing also includes marketing to schools, charities, public sector organisations, etc.

People who make decisions in business to business marketing buy a product or service based on how it may solve a problem or unlock a potential opportunity for their organisation.

The goal of B2B marketing is to demonstrate the value of your product/service to those in charge of making decisions within a company.

What does B2C mean in marketing?

‘B2C’ stands for business to consumer.

It describes the approach you should adopt when trying to find people purchasing for themselves, their families, or others.

It is possible to market a small, less expensive item to both B2B and B2C markets, such as laptops, mobile phones, consumables, etc.

Why is marketing important for your B2B company?

You can deliver information, insights, and benefits about your products or services through B2B marketing.

Even though B2B customers still accept traditional B2B strategies like email and telemarketing, they are more likely to research a product or service themselves through search engines than contact an expert first.

Through B2B marketing, you can actively and passively communicate important information to those in charge of decision making in the types of companies you target.

What are the major B2B marketing challenges?

The main obstacles of B2B marketing vary by channel and audience.

It can be challenging for marketers to bring disparate B2B marketing strategies together.  In order to be proactive, your sales, marketing, and content teams need insight into the sales funnel.

The primary goal of any online marketing campaign is for your audience to find your business’s product or service online.

Engaging them on your site is important at the beginning.

To increase B2B brand awareness and move them through the funnel, you have to encourage them to share their contact information.

The greatest challenge marketers face when using email (including sending emails to buyers) is ensuring that the emails are delivered to the buyers’ inbox.

Having done that, you need to create a subject line that encourages as many recipients as possible to open your email.

As for telemarketing, it is important to develop an engaging telesales script or structure, as well as to convince the secretary to connect the call. In postal marketing, the major challenge is getting your letter into the hands of decision makers, even with properly addressed envelopes.

If you succeed in that, what a marketer’s toughest task will be writing and designing a brochure or sales letter that generates sales leads.

How can we identify the target audiences most likely to buy our products?

In order to discover which B2B markets to target, you must understand which problem your product or service solves or which opportunity it opens up.

Your marketing efforts will be more successful if you know which businesses will benefit from what you sell.

Check your customer relationship management software for common purchasing patterns within your client base.

Many B2B companies use buyer personas to understand the motivations, pressures, and fears of the audience they’re targeting.

The best B2B marketing strategies

When you’re marketing a B2B product or service, the focus should be on lead generation.

A complex, customisable or expensive product or service might not be easy to sell online.

To overcome buyer anxiety and uncertainty, you must use B2B marketing approaches which expose buyers to the brand and product you wish to sell them.

Make your company website, B2B social media marketing, and distribution of content to relevant third party platforms your medium to long-term strategy.

How to build long term relationships with B2B buyers and decision makers

The best way to make a sale and build long term relationships with clients is to stay in touch.

With either direct marketing or content marketing, you keep them informed about your company and products while building brand awareness.

The more your audience sees your company, the more trust they will have in your product.

Because you’ve shared information with each other, they’ll be confident you’re going to deliver on what you promise.

B2B email marketing best practices

You must adhere to best practices for B2B email marketing to consistently generate leads.

Current B2B email marketing best practices include:

• Including a simple, free way to opt out of receiving any future emails,
• At the bottom of every email, put your full company name and postal HQ address,
• Avoid deceptive subject lines and “from” names
• If you send a campaign, make sure each recipient needs what you sell
• Promote products/services for the organisation that the recipient works for and not for the recipient personally. GDPR prohibits any use of B2B email marketing to promote consumer products/services.

How does GDPR affect B2B marketing?

GDPR prohibits B2B organisations from sending marketing emails without consent.

Individuals can only be contacted by email if:

1. the person has explicitly consented, and
2. they have previously bought similar services or products and were given a way to opt out.

With GDPR, all digital marketing campaigns were affected, especially email marketing campaigns.

These rules are a little different for B2B companies.

GDPR is still in force for B2B email marketing, but compliance actually helps to better target your audience.

Any business is considered a “corporate subscriber”.

Thus, emails sent to corporate email accounts can be sent without formal consent. Senders must identify themselves and make opt-out easy,

For telemarketing, you must check that the phone number you are dialling is not registered with either the Telephone Preference Service or the Corporate Telephone Preference Service .

For our GDPR policy, please click here .

What should your B2B marketing budget be

A percentage of last year’s revenue is a popular way to determine a marketing budget.

In February 2021, Deloitte’s annual CMO Survey reported that marketing budgets made up, on average, 11.7% of total business spending.

But the exact percentage you should allocate to your B2B marketing budget depends on your strategy, finances and specific goals.